In Wisconsin, The Child Welfare Disclosure Act requires some information be made public in child abuse cases.

The Child Welfare Disclosure Act (SB299 and AB428) requires disclosure of child death and child maltreatment information, with or without criminal investigation activity. The information that child welfare services must release include the child’s age, race, gender, special needs, date of incident, suspected cause of death or injury, brief history of contact with child welfare and law enforcement authorities, and actions taken by agencies, changes in policies/practices.

The timeline for disclosure of details includes initial information will be released within two working days; followed by a full summary report within 90 days.

Information that may remain undisclosed includes the child’s name, perpetrator’s name and names of workers involved in the case.